A Microsoft software engineer was found dead at work last month. Now his family is pleading with tech companies to lighten the load on their employees.
Pratik Pandley, 35, entered the Silicon Valley campus of Microsoft on the evening of Aug. 19, Bloomberg reported. He was found dead, face down in the office building’s courtyard at about 2 a.m. the next morning.
Police found “no signs of any suspicious activity or behavior,” according to Bloomberg.
He didn’t have any known health issues, but the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner said it appears that he had died of a heart attack, the Palo Alto Daily Post reported.
Community leader Satish Chandra told the newspaper that Pandley told his roommate and coworkers that he was under a lot of stress and had several projects at the same time.
His uncle, Manoj Pandey, said his nephew’s friends told him that the software engineer worked late nights for a “very extended period of time.”
Manoj Pandey said that tech companies should track when their employees are coming in late at night and work to ease the pressure put on them.
“That will probably save a life,” he told the Daily Post.
When asked by Bloomberg last week for a comment, Microsoft declined. A Microsoft spokesperson also declined a request for comment from People magazine this week.